LIHUE — Sometimes, Curtis Allen thinks he would have been better off if the accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down had killed him.
Allen spends 20 hours a day confined to a hospital bed, trying to figure out how to turn his life into anything other than a waking nightmare.
“I’m laying here, literally wasting away,” Allen said Wednesday from his room in Garden Isle Healthcare & Rehabilitation long-term care unit at Wilcox Medical Center. “I feel like I have to somehow escape if I want to have a life.”
Friends are putting on a fundraiser featuring live music and comedy on Saturday night to raise money they hope will allow him to move back to his home state of Washington, where rehabilitation programs and long-term-care facilities are available.
Before the accident, Allen was a carpenter and an art fabricator. He built theater props and designed artwork out of different mediums. Some of his work can be seen in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in San Jose, Calif., where he designed and fabricated some of the building’s permanent fixtures using clay, wood and steel. He loved pickleball, swing dancing, swimming and amateur astronomy.
On the morning of Dec. 2, 2018, Allen was working on his lanai in Princeville when a dizzy spell hit him and he fell four feet to the ground. He lost consciousness for about an hour.
“When I woke up, my chest didn’t feel like it was part of my body,” he said. “It was then that I realized I was in big trouble.”
Hours passed but nobody came to help. Morning turned into afternoon.
“The sun started beaming down on me,” Allen said, remembering that he was at least partially protected by the shade of two trees in his yard that helped some as the sun moved across the sky. “I ended up with third-degree burns from the stomach down.”
Eventually, Allen said, his mind disconnected in some way, allowing him to pass much of the time in what he called “a Zen-like state.” He tried yelling for help, but his voice was weak, and the efforts were futile. At one point, Allen said he even tried reaching out telepathically, desperately hoping he could make some mental connection with a loved one. It didn’t work.
Sixteen hours passed before help arrived and, in the meantime, Allen started coming to terms with his own mortality, a thought he would find himself returning to in the months to come.
“I guess this is the way it’s gonna be. I guess I’m going to die today,” Allen remembered thinking to himself. “Fortunately or unfortunately — I’m not sure yet which — somebody found me.”
He spent the next three months eating through a tube, communicating with friends and family via handwritten notes that he struggled to make legible — the fingers that once put food on his table had been crippled by nerve damage.
Even now, Allen can’t grip the brakes or handles on his wheelchair. He said his insurance canceled the rehabilitation program he participated in on Oahu, with the promise that his plan would cover a specialized chair that would give him the ability to once again move on his own.
Allen was transferred back to Kauai, but the wheelchair and other basic medical supplies he needed to function never materialized.
Allen said his insurance representative informed him he must remain in Garden Isle Healthcare & Rehabilitation — which is not affiliated with Wilcox and is its own entity — as it is among the only options on Kauai for those who need 24/7 care.
Allen said he hopes some of the fundraiser money can go toward a new wheelchair, but more than anything, he wants to live independently.
“If I get the proper care and rehabilitation, I have the chance to have a good quality of life,” he said, explaining that medical facilities on the mainland can provide the type of out-patient medical services not available locally.
“Basically, I’m trying to do whatever I can to get the hell out of here,” he said. “I can’t live this way.”
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Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.
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Allen benefit Saturday
An “Evening of Comedy, Blues and Gypsy Jazz” to benefit Curtis Allen is set for 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Church of the Pacific in Princeville.
There will be live music, and a drawing for a custom-made, nine-foot long board shaped by Mark Sausen of Papa Sau Surfboards.
Tickets can be purchased at the door for $40. Advance concert and donation tickets are $30, and can be purchased at bit.ly/2UejC52 or at the following locations: Hanalei Surf, Hanalei Strings, Harvest Market, Magic Dragon Toys Princeville, Healthy Hut Kilauea, North Shore Pharmacy Kilauea, Kamoa Ukulele Kapaa, and Kauai Music and Sound Kapaa.
Proceeds will help Allen pay for rehabilitation and ongoing expenses associated with the spinal-cord injury that robbed him of the ability to move from the chest down and left him without the functional use of his hands
Editor’s note:
This story has been edited to reflect that Garden Isle Healthcare & Rehabilitation is not affiliated with Wilcox and is its own entity.
A bit of a dramatic heading for this piece of work.